Apex court rejects Dinakaran’s plea

New Delhi, July 19 (IANS) The Supreme Court Tuesday rejected a plea by Sikkim High Court Chief Justice P.D. Dinakaran challenging the decision of a panel probing misconduct charges against him to allow a lawyer to join its proceedings.

The Judges Inquiry Committee (JIC) had permitted Chennai based advocate R. Vaigai as intervener in its proceedings.

The JIC headed by Justice Aftab Alam of the apex court is probing charges of corruption, land grabbing, possessing disproportionate assets and misbehaviour against Dinkaran.

The probe was launched after a notice of motion for impeachment initiated against Dinakaran by Rajya Sabha members.

An apex court bench of Justice G.S.Singhvi and Justice Chandramauli Kumar Prasad rejected Dinakaran’s plea and said that it would pass a detailed order later.

Justice Dinakaran had challenged the decision of the JIC probing the charges of corruption, land grabbing, possessing disproportionate assets and misbehaviour against him.

Vaigai, who represents Forum for Judicial Accountability, was permitted to be an intervener at the stage when JIC commenced its proceedings probing charges against Justice Dinakaran.

The JIC headed by Justice Aftab Alam of apex court is probing charges in pursuance of the notice of motion for impeachment initiated against Justice Dinakaran by Rajya Sabha members.

The other two members of three member JIC are Karnataka High Court Chief Justice J.S. Khehar and G. Madan Gopal of Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies.

Madan Gopal was inducted into the JIC after the apex court ordered replacement of senior counsel P.P. Rao on the grounds of the apprehension of bias expressed by Dinakaran in his earlier petition.

Appearing for Dinakaran, senior counsel Amarendra Saran told the court that under the judges inquiry procedure there was no scope for the intervention of a third party.

Saran told the court that the order passed by the JIC to permit the intervener to assist the committee was totally unsustainable.

He told the court that Dinakaran had filed another application challenging the appointment of senior counsel U.U. Lalit by the JIC. He said that authority to appoint counsel was vested in the central government and not the JIC.

Saran said that the JIC’s role was limited to going into the charges contained in the notice of motion sent to it by Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Hamid Ansari.